◈ Homepage — https://jedriffefilms.com/Skip to content JED RIFFE FILMS About Films Interactive Archive Contact BD Main Image_Fullsize_72dpi_halfsize Ishi_Horizontal_Poster PleistoceneParkPitchDeck-1 Jed Riffe Jed Riffe is an American filmmaker and founder of Jed Riffe Films. For over 30 years his documentary films have focused on social issues and politics including: Native American histories and struggles. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more Production • Interactive • Archival Current Projects The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane illuminates the extraordinary story of a trailblazing woman and an unsung hero of American roots music. Learn more Africana Interactive Studies Center The Africana Studies Center was conceived by Dr. Siri Brown, Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at Merritt College in Oakland, CA. Learn more © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us ◈ Interior Pages — 7 pages crawledAbout Jed Riffe – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact About Jed Riffe Independent Filmmaker (producer, director) Over the last 30 plus years Jed Riffe produced and directed five award-winning internationally broadcast documentary films including the national Emmy nominated documentary Ishi, the Last Yahi , and produced 20 broadcast documentaries in collaboration with other highly regarded filmmakers. Jed conceived and served as one of three series producers for the California and the American Dream , an independently produced four-hour, nationally broadcast PBS series. He is honored to be a member of FWD-Doc, a Sundance Documentary Film Program Fellow/Alumni and a Gerbode Fellow for Excellence in Non-Profit Management. Explore Films Archival Producer Jed Riffe has supervised and conducted archival research for Peralta Community College District- Africana (Interactive) Community Studies Center ; Protesta Productions- The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane ; Frances Causey Films- The Long Shadow ; Paragon Media  and The California and the American Dream PBS Series and other companies producing national and internationally broadcast documentaries and interactive media.  Jed Riffe maintains and continually adds to his archival databases which feature a significant collection of footage, still photos and archival images on slavery, Jim Crow, American Indian tribal communities, American Indian-white history and relations; Eugenics as well as many other subjects.  Many of these images are rare and hard to find. Riffe has created and maintains databases with thousands of images. He has worked with intellectual property attorneys Michael Donaldson, Alan Korn and others. Archival & Stock Footage The Jed Riffe Films Archive is an independently sourced and managed archive containing footage shot by Vicente Franco, Ashley James, Jaime Kibben, Jed Riffe and many other highly regarded cinematographers. The Archive has hundreds of archival videos available for licensing. Explore Archive Internships Film Festival Awards Production Grants Transmedia Storyteller-Interactive Producer Jed Riffe has over 30 years experience and expertise in producing media and designing interactive installations for museums, educational institutions and public spaces on multiple platforms.  You can check some of our projects by visiting our interactive media links here. Jed Riffe produced: AFRICANA , an Interactive Afro centered history of the world featuring 170 pages of interactive content 107 topic driven videos, interactive maps and more designed for specially built environments in colleges and high schools.  PUBLIC BROADCASTING IN PUBLIC PLACES featuring four specially-designed interactive kiosks ( Public Broadcasting in Public Places ) for the  California and the American Dream series , funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Jed Riffe and The Autry Museum of American History collaborated in designing four interactive exhibits funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  TV OF TOMORROW , a prototype for The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s  TV of Tomorrow Digital Initiative  in 2000.  CALIFORNIA, A PLACE, A HISTORY AND A DREAM , 86 minutes of specially edited video clips for the interactive touch screen kiosks featured in the Oakland Museum of California’s History exhibit. Explore Interactive About Maureen Gosling A filmmaker for over fifty years, Gosling has worked variously as a director, producer, editor, sound recordist, and distributor. Gosling was producer/director and editor with Chris Simon on the feature doc, THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC! (SXSW), on the life and legacy of American roots music record producer, Chris Strachwitz. The feature length film premiered at SXSW and won Top Audience Awards at Hot Docs and the Mill Valley Film Festival. Gosling directed, produced and edited BLOSSOMS OF FIRE 2000 for HBO Latino. Gosling is best known for her 20-year collaboration with the late San Francisco Bay Area director, Les Blank, on more than two-dozen documentaries, as co-filmmaker, editor and/or sound recordist. Their best-known film is the classic “making of”, BURDEN OF DREAMS (British Academy Award for Best Documentary 1982). She co-wrote and edited Riffe’s CALIFORNIA’S “LOST” TRIBES, part 1 of the four-hour PBS series, CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM. She also edited Riffe’s WAITING TO INHALE: MARIJUANA, MEDICINE AND THE LAW, and five nationally and internationally broadcast docs that Riffe produced.  Riffe and Gosling are currently producing THE NINE LIVES OF BARBARA DANE. © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us Archive – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact Jed Riffe Films Archive Hundreds of videos—curated for your needs Explore on YouTube and counting High-quality, unique, and licensable video clips Frequently Asked Questions What is the Jed Riffe Films Archive? The Jed Riffe Films Archive is an independently-sourced and managed archive of footage shot during numerous projects by Jed Riffe and others. Jed Riffe Films maintains the rights to all of the footage in the archive. How do I browse the archive? The Jed Riffe Films Archive can be accessed on YouTube . How do I learn about pricing? All pricing is determined on a per-use basis. Please email us at [email protected] . I have footage. Can I contribute to the archive? Yes! We are always looking for new footage to add to our archive. Please contact us for more information. Credits: Video Editing and Curation: Janan Ali, Ami Shurtleff Archival Research: Melanie Choy YouTube Organization, Publicity & Marketing: Zac Colah Cinematographers: Vicente Franco, Ashley James, Jack Kohler, Daniel Meyers, Jaime Kibbens, Doug Dunderdale, Jed Riffe © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us Films – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane  illuminates the extraordinary story of a trailblazing woman and an unsung hero of American roots music: folk, blues and jazz singer, social justice activist, wife, mother of three, world traveler, feminist, record producer, maverick and general troublemaker.  In the late 1950s, Barbara was a rising star, inspired by the Black women blues singers of the 1920s . . . Learn more From Here / From There When ICE threatens 700,000 fellow Dreamers, Luis Cortes Romero fights back — and becomes the first undocumented attorney to argue a case at the U.S. Supreme Court. A charismatic immigration attorney and DACA recipient, Luis risks his own safety to join a powerful and highly visible legal team. Their stunning Supreme Court win fortifies a growing, vigorous and urgent campaign for compassionate immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. Learn more Pleistocene Park Seeking no one’s help and asking nobody’s permission, in the most remote corner of Siberia, Russian scientist Sergey Zimov and his son Nikita are resurrecting a vanished Ice Age ecosystem. They are scouring the planet for holdovers from the Ice Age and transporting them, by whatever low-budget means they can contrive, to Pleistocene Park. Twenty years ago Sergey . . . Learn more The Long Shadow When two daughters of the South set out to find causes for the continuing racial divisions in the United States, what they discovered was that the politics of slavery didn’t end after the Civil War. In an astonishingly candid look at slavery, The Long Shadow traces that institution’s tragic political and economic impact – from America’s founding to the ties to the racism still so prevalent today. Learn more A Dangerous Idea A dangerous idea has threatened the American Dream from the beginning – the belief that some groups and individuals are inherently superior to others and more deserving of fundamental rights. Such biological determinism provided an excuse for some of America’s most shameful history. And now it’s back. The documentary reveals how biologically determined politics . . . Learn more A New Color Long before Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry, Edythe Boone embodied that truth as an artist, an educator, and a great-grandmother. When a deeply personal tragedy ignites a national outcry, everything that Edy has worked so tirelessly for comes into question. From humble Harlem beginnings herself, the indefatigable “Edy” has for decades introduced underserved youth and seniors to the transformative power of art. Learn more California and the American Dream Series California and the American Dream is a 4 episode series created for PBS out of a partnership between producers/directors Jed Riffe (California’s ‘Lost’ Tribes/Ripe for Change), Emiko Omori (Ripe for Change), Lyn Goldfarb (The New Los Angeles) and Paul Espinosa (The Price of Renewal). The series explores the dynamics of culture, community, and identity in one of the most diverse regions in the world. In the last 35 years, California has become . . . Learn more Ishi, the Last Yahi Ishi, the Last Yahi begins in 1492 when there were more than ten million Native Americans in North America. By 1910, their numbers had been reduced to fewer than 300,000. In California, massacres of Indians in the 1860s and 1870s had nearly exterminated the Native peoples in the state. Therefore the sudden appearance in northern California in 1911 of Ishi, “the last wild Indian in North America,” stunned the nation. For more than 40 years, Ishi had lived in hiding with a tiny band of survivors. When he walked into the white man’s world, he was the last Yahi Indian alive. Learn more Smokin’ Fish Cory Mann is a quirky Tlingit Businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau Alaska. He gets hungry for smoked salmon, nostalgic for his childhood and decides to spend a summer smoking fish at this family’s traditional fish camp. The unusual story of his life and the untold history of his people interweave with the process of preparing traditional food as he struggles to pay his bills, keep the IRS off his back, and keep his business afloat. Learn more To Chris Marker: An Unsent Letter A collective cinematic love letter to the elusive French filmmaker Chris Marker in documentary form, Emiko Omori’s timely film captures the persona of a filmmaker who is at once both contradictorily present in and distant from his body of work. Notoriously private, self-described as the “best-known author of unknown works,” Marker is widely known for a few key cinematic works . . . Learn more Waiting to Inhale Waiting to Inhale: Marijuana, Medicine and the Law pioneered the movement towards the legalization of marijuana as the first documentary in the US to document the struggle for medical marijuana use, following the movement from 2000 to 2006 and offering exclusive footage of the first major scientific study of medical cannabis to take place in over thirty years. Learn more Who Owns the Past? The final decades of the twentieth century brought unprecedented changes for American Indians, especially in the areas of human rights and tribal sovereignty. In 1990, after a long struggle between Indian rights groups and the scientific establishment, the Native American Graves Repatriation and Protection Act was passed. For American Indians, this was perhaps the most important piece . . . Learn more © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us Contact – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact Send us a message! Have a question? Want to inquire about one of our projects? (510) 845-2044 Jed Riffe Films LLC Fantasy Films Building 2600 Tenth St #438 Berkeley, CA 94710 LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram Name Email Subject Message © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us Africana Interactive Studies Center – Merritt College – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact Africana Interactive Studies Center In 2014, Jim LeBrecht, Alex Black, and Jed Riffe announced the completion of the first interactive ethnic studies center in the country. Sundance award-winning filmmakers Vicente Franco (Daughter from Danang) and Emiko Omori (Rabbit in the Moon) collaborated as cinematographer and editor respectively. The Africana Studies Center was conceived by Dr. Siri Brown, Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at Merritt College in Oakland, CA. The production team collaborated with Dr. Brown for 24 months to design, produce and present a first-of-its-kind interactive learning experience. The principal platform is the iPad Air. The Center also features three Mac Mini’s in a room designed with a custom African theme. Over 800 students a year will spend a minimum of 8 hours each in the Center over the course of two semesters. The interactive project consists of 160 pages of content on four modules: Classical African Civilizations; Maafa: Slavery and Colonialism; Pan Africanism and Oakland: Our Story. The Oakland module includes the history of Oakland, Merritt College and the Black Panther Party. Merritt College offered the first African Studies course in the country in 1964. Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton were students at Merritt and took the courses. They organized the Black Panther Party at Merritt in l966 in response to the murder of Malcolm X and police brutality in Oakland. Interactive elements include four opening animations, 105 5-7 minute edited videos, interactive maps, enhanced still photos and graphics, dramatic voice-overs, animations and a timeline slider allowing users to move instantly between all four modules. The project is designed to serve the needs of all students including the visually and hearing impaired and Spanish language speakers. For accessibility, there are 420 videos: 105 in English, 105 Closed Captioned in English, 105 in Spanish Captioned, and 105 Audio Described. The Africana Studies program is delivered on a closed server system that allows all of the videos and other content to be delivered to the user instantly without having to wait for the content to load. The Center was designed to enable all students to engage with the content that includes non-standard and accessible furniture and graphics including colorful bean-bag chairs with backs, a special table for the Mac Mini’s, and custom tables with tethers for the students to use with the iPads. The team designed four interchangeable 48” x 96” wall panels based on the theme of each module. © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane “Did you get that chick? She’s a gasser!” LOUIS ARMSTRONG The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane illuminates the extraordinary story of a trailblazing woman and an unsung hero of American roots music: folk, blues and jazz singer, social justice activist, wife, mother of three, world traveler, feminist, record producer, maverick and general troublemaker.     In the late 1950s, Barbara was a rising star, inspired by the Black women blues singers of the 1920s — Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and their life philosophies. Her swing and unique phrasing caught the ear of jazz aficionados across the country, and soon she was performing and recording with many jazz and blues greats: Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Lightnin’ Hopkins. “Bessie Smith in stereo” LEONARD FEATHER, Jazz critic Barbara moved seamlessly from the bright lights of celebrity to the tumultuous streets of 1960s America, paving her own way with her art, in the service of social justice, civil rights, and peace. She shared stages with Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Phil Ochs. Dane’s innate honesty and indignation at injustice put her at odds with people and opportunities throughout her life while adding pages to her 4-inch thick FBI file. In 1962, Barbara joined fellow folksingers on the Mississippi Caravan of Music to support the Freedom Riders under attack for registering Black voters. She performed at both the Newport and Monterey Folk Festivals. She helped amplify the voices of many musicians — Jesse Fuller, Mama Yancey, and the Chambers Brothers. “The world needs more people like Barbara, someone who is willing to follow her conscience. She is, if the term must be used, a hero.” BOB DYLAN Dane was galvanized to support the GI Anti-Vietnam War Movement, singing at GI Coffee Houses across the country. She inspired actress Jane Fonda to join the cause, in the US and internationally. Fonda credits Barbara with developing her understanding of feminism, which led her to take the role of KLUTE which garnered Fonda her first Oscar.     In the summer of 2016, to celebrate her 90th year, Dane recorded a new CD, Throw It Away, and hit the road with a film crew over the next two years, performing six major concerts in six cities, including Havana, Cuba. She has fearlessly followed her conscience and “kept her soul,” despite daunting setbacks and consequences, and serves as deep inspiration for all generations. THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE STORE Check out exclusive merchandise and memorabilia! ORDER NOW! Release date: 2023 Production Company: Protesta Productions In Association With Jed Riffe Films Director & Editor: Maureen Gosling Producer: Jed Riffe Executive Producers: Nina Menendez, Danny Glover, Jonathan Logan, Carolyn Mugar, T.M. Scruggs, Kit Miller, Nancy Blachman Associate Producer: Victoria Dmitrieva Cinematographer: Ashley James Cuba Camera: Roberto Chili © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us Public Broadcasting in Public Places – Jed Riffe Films Jed Riffe Films About Films Interactive Africana Interactive Studies Center Public Broadcasting in Public Places Archive Contact Public Broadcasting in Public Places Public Broadcasting in Public Places brought prime-time national PBS programming to audiences beyond public television in 2007. Funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting , this groundbreaking digital initiative presented a new concept for interactive kiosks designed to provide entertaining and engaging storytelling. Working closely with Series producers Lyn Goldfarb, Paul Espinosa, and Emiko Omori, interactive producer Jed Riffe and interactive designer/programmer Emrah Oral (Jed Riffe Films) created four custom-designed interactive kiosks using Apple iMac touch-screen computers. Each kiosk featured specially edited clips with content from the California and the American Dream Series . We also created an interactive California Trivia Game, a contest where users could win DVDs from the Series, and programmed an on-screen keyboard where email addresses could be entered beginning a two-way dialogue. The kiosks were installed in locations across California including: the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, CA; the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento, CA; the Price Charities Civic Complex in San Diego, CA; Goggle’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, CA; the 2008 International Ecological Farming Conference in Pacific Grove, CA; the Grace Hudson Museum in Mendocino, CA; Santa Cruz County Fair and the Center for Sustainable Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. In October 2007, the kiosks won a Golden Plaque for best interactive “Visitor Center’s Presentation” in the Chicago International Film Festival’s INTERCOM Competition. The award followed the national premiere of Public Broadcasting in Public Places at the Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media Opening Plenary at the Council of Foundations Fall Conference for Community Foundations in San Francisco. History In 2006, Lyn Goldfarb, Paul Espinosa, and Jed Riffe, Series Producers of the California and the American Dream television Series approached the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with an innovative idea to bring high-quality public television content to public places outside the traditional PBS audience setting. We called it Public Broadcasting in Public Places. In January of 2007, we received funding from CPB and contracted with Jed Riffe Films + Electronic Media to produce the interactive program. Multimedia designer and programmer Emrah Oral and interactive producer Jed Riffe created the design which used an Intuitive Realtime Playback Branching structure featuring nineteen 1-3 minute clips, programmed in Flash, from each of the four documentaries which comprised the California and the American Dream Series. Emrah Oral designed and programmed both the visual graphic interface in Flash and a virtual on-screen keyboard. Oral and Riffe worked closely with Georg Colberg a woodcraftsman artist in West Berkeley who fabricated the body of the kiosk. Troll Touch, a Valencia, California-based company was selected to install their TouchSTAR3 touchscreen technology in the iMac Intel 2 Core Duo computers that were to be used in the kiosks. An onscreen keyboard module was added to the user survey and feedback database module, and provisions for wireless broadband access were built into the system for remote content updates and database retrieval. The unique design allowed for a custom audio setup, which consisted of Altec Lansing amps and speakers. The doors at the back of the kiosk allowed access to the administrator controls and ports, including USB and IEEE1394 for admin access, audio and fan controls, surge protector and AC transformers. Meanwhile in the programmers’ shrine section of Jed Riffe Films + Electronic Media, the first beta-testing sessions began. Once the multimedia Flash modules and user interface were working flawlessly, a California “Trivia” game was designed and programmed. Users could also type in their email address for future updates, to win a prize, and receive information about The Series and the PBIPP program. The incentive allowed the producers to collect users email address to engage users in a two-way conversation as part of The Series Civic Engagement Campaign. In this case, the participant could win a free DVD of one of the four episodes of the California and the American Dream Series.After countless hours of rigorous overall beta-testing, the Kiosks were ready. Here we were, ready to install the first kiosks. In less than three and a half months, the project was completed. It was an exciting time for the entire team the day we took our first kiosk to the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, California. Interactive producer Jed Riffe and Series Producers Paul Espinosa and Lyn Goldfarb successfully negotiated the placement of the four kiosks at different locations for a one-year period. These included: 12 months, 4 kiosks, 10 locations. It was a challenge and it was fun. © 2024 Jed Riffe Films LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Contact Us